1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to protective barriers. More particularly, the invention relates to protective barriers for use with dental instruments and like devices to prevent the spread of contaminants.
It has long been recognized in the dental industry that after an infectious agent from one patient contaminates a dental instrument, the instrument has the potential to spread the contaminants to the next patient unless special care is taken to replace the instrument or properly sterilize it. As a general rule, replacing the instrument parts which are vulnerable to contamination is prohibitively expensive and sterilizing the parts by autoclaving is time consuming. While attempts have been made in the past to sterilize the instrument parts by spraying the parts with a disinfectant, experience has shown that such an approach is inadequate to effectively remove all contaminants.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
In the past, various attempts have been made to provide protective plastic sheaths of various configurations for covering hand held dental tools. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,921,776, issued to Heilbrunn, discloses a barrier device that includes a disposable sheath, which can be positioned to shroud the instrument without encumbering its functionality. The device further includes a disposable probe which is integrally formed with the sheath and which is attached to the instrument along with the sheath.
In a similar vein, U.S. Pat. No. 4,907,968 issued to Eisner, et al., discloses a yieldably deformable shield or prophylactic, which exhibits sufficient deformability to adapt to any of a variety of angular or curved shapes of the nozzle of a dental syringe.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,350,124, issued to Wade discloses a dental system comprising a hand piece having a housing and including a bur and air and water outlets for performing dental operations in an oral operating field; an inner cover separate from the housing having a shape substantially conforming to a shape of the hand piece for enclosing the hand piece and including a first aperture for receiving the bur and a second aperture for passing air and water from the air and water outlets of the hand piece; and an outer cover having a shape substantially conforming to a shape of the inner cover for enclosing the inner cover and including a first aperture for receiving the bur and a second aperture for passing air and water passed from the inner cover to the operating field.
A common drawback of the prior art barrier devices resides in the fact that the dental instrument is more difficult to grip and to manipulate after the barrier device has been interconnected with the dental instrument. This is generally because the ergonomics provided on the dental instrument are covered and masked by the barrier device. Another drawback of the prior art barrier devices concerns the difficulty in initially attaching the barrier device securely to the dental instrument and then the removal of the barrier device from the dental instrument following completion of the dental procedure.
It is the drawbacks of the prior art devices as set forth in the preceding paragraph that the protective barrier of the present invention seeks to overcome. As will be better understood from the discussion that follows, the protective barrier device of the present invention is very easy to connect and disconnect from dental instruments and like devices and uniquely replicates the ergonomic features found in the instrument. In one form of the invention the protective barrier device is fabricated from a moldable plastic that can be sterilized through use of appropriate antimicrobial liquids.